Why the ‘Warm Data’ Process Matters

On September 13–20, 2026, Nora Bateson, award-winning filmmaker, writer, educator, systems thinker, and president of the International Bateson Institute, will be hosting a Warm Data training in Portland, Oregon.

To understand exactly what “warm data” are and why the concept is relevant to addressing today’s polycrisis, we reached out to Portland-based Howard Silverman.

From 1999 to 2012, Silverman was on staff at Ecotrust, where he worked on numerous projects to foster the regional resilience of social-ecological systems. He has taught in graduate programs at Pacific Northwest College of Art, New York University, and Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Silverman is a trustee of the American Society for Cybernetics and a past board member of the International Society for the Systems Sciences.

He has been in contact with Bateson and her team about the training in September, so Magic Canoe reached out to him for further details on this emergent line of inquiry, and why it matters for the bioregion. The interview was edited for concision and clarity.

What exactly are “warm data”?

HS: Well, in this conversation, I would say that warm data are everything that’s not in the transcript. The transcript is the data. But if the transcript is just words on a page, then there’s a lot missing, right?

On this video conference, for example, we gain a lot versus an audio call. I can see your expressions and reactions. We can hear each other’s tone, but we can’t smell. It’s not the same as us walking outside together. These are all layers of data.

Let me add that it would feel odd for you to attribute any of this to me, because I’m just trying to channel Nora Bateson and how she talks about this stuff. Nora describes warm data as transcontextual information. Information that’s sensitive to its various contexts.

How did you first interact with Nora Bateson and Warm Data?

HS: When I was working at Ecotrust, some folks at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) were planning a new graduate program called Collaborative Design. They contacted me because of the work I was doing at Ecotrust and asked me to teach the Systems Thinking course.

Since 2011, I’ve been teaching systems and futures in grad schools at PNCA and NYU and now online at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. At the beginning I drew upon my Ecotrust experiences, like my work on a publication called Resilience & Transformation: A Regional Approach. And I started going to academic conferences. In 2012, I joined the International Society for the System Sciences (ISSS) and the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC).

At the 2012 ASC conference, Nora Bateson was celebrating her new film about her father, An Ecology of Mind. I was fascinated by the movie, so I invited her to come to PNCA. We hosted the premiere of the movie at the Mercy Corps Action Center, and I’ve known her on and off since then, about fifteen years.

In 2019 I heard about the Warm Data trainings, where one could join weeklong sessions with Nora to participate in the work she was developing. I went to a training just before COVID hit, and was glad that I did, because that became one of the clusters that I was involved with in the spring of 2020, that season of many online group conversations.

How are warm data being applied in Salmon Nation? And how do you find this relevant for Magic Canoe readers?

HS: One Warm Data experience that Nora likes to highlight is the experience of “Your story changed my story.” When we’re really sharing with each other, when you tell me a story, the way I’m going to react to you is not how I would have reacted five minutes ago. There’s something about how I’ve listened to you that has changed what I’m going to say. That’s warm data.

Your story changed my story. When I think about Magic Canoe stories, I think about Cecil Paul’s story. I think this is really a magical story. First, there’s the generosity of it. Everyone belongs in the canoe. That’s part of what I hear in Cecil’s words that’s so powerful to me—we belong. So Cecil’s story changed my story.

Also in Cecil’s story is the magic of the canoe. The more people in it, the more it grows. That’s a reinforcing feedback, an upward spiral. It’s like in adrienne maree brown’s book, Emergent Strategy, there’s this phrase: “What you pay attention to grows.” When I hear that, I also hear Cecil’s story. What you pay attention to grows. The more people in the canoe, the more it grows.

Nora likes to say, Who can I be when I’m with you? That also has some canoe magic in it. It’s an invitation to open possibilities, to build a reinforcing feedback between us.

Tell us more about this September Warm Data training.

HS: A Warm Data Lab is a particular way of hosting group conversations. Like World Cafe, or Art of Hosting, or Council of All Beings, or any of these methods and communities that specialize in bringing people together in meaningful conversation.

The way the process works is that if you join the training, then you’re certified as a Warm Data Lab practitioner, and join the network and can become a host. That said, I think the joy of being at this training in September is just getting to spend a week with Nora and everyone else. Whether or not you ever use this kind of hosting in your work, it will be a great place to be for a week. And it’ll be a deep introduction to cybernetics.

There’s a line from Nora’s father, Gregory Bateson, from his book, Mind and Nature: “It takes at least two somethings to create a difference.” A Warm Data Lab brings these somethings, these stories, together in a particular way. So that they, and we, rub up against each other. So as to create difference.

When Nora’s in Portland this September, she will also host a public Warm Data Lab in Laurelhurst Park, so anyone who’s curious can give it a try. I highly recommend it.

As for online stuff, there’s a great video of Nora with Vanessa Andreotti, who wrote the book Hospicing Modernity. Vanessa used to be at University of British Columbia and is more recently at University of Victoria.

For Salmon Nation, for the bioregion, I’d go back to the phrase, Who can I be when I’m with you? I wonder, when I ask this question of the watershed, what do I hear? What kind of awareness is required of me? What kind of personhood? To be in relationship with my ecosystem—that’s warm data as well.

Go Deeper:

1. Sign up for the upcoming Warm Data training in Portland, Oregon, September 13–20.
2. Join the public Warm Data Lab at Laurelhurst Park in Portland on September 16.
3. Learn more about Nora Bateson and Warm Data.
4. Watch Nora’s film about Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind.